SSSCA Hearing 779
larsoncc writes: "According to this article on CNET, a Senate Bill will likely force the issue of adding copy protection to hardware. They are giving the industry 12 to 18 months to come up with a voluntary solution to the "problem" of copies, and if not... Well, you just have to read the article. Insane." Wired also has a story. The IP list published two interesting documents: an account of the hearing by an attendee, and a letter from Intel published immediately after the hearing. Read the letter carefully - note that the disagreement between the tech industry and Hollywood is not over whether or not copy protection will be implemented into every electronic device, but only whether or not this should be written into law. If the SSSCA isn't passed, Intel (and others) get a lot of leverage over Hollywood. If it is, Intel's leverage disappears. But since both sides want to build copy protection into everything, they only differ over the process, we're in trouble either way.
This is the opposite of what is really needed. (Score:2, Insightful)
wont work (Score:3, Insightful)
IF the media thinks it can use laws to curb such things it is mistaken. In a democracy you cant always have what you want, compromises are necessary.
Foregone conclusions (Score:5, Insightful)
It also appears that they are shouting down anyone who objects as enabling criminal activities.
Tech Industry players don't want to be seen as supporting criminals, and don't have the guts to stand up for enabling the user (Other than Intel, who got beaten up for it)
So, in the name of not looking bad, and not getting more bad law, it is a foregone conclusion that we will have copy-protection- it's just a question of whether it will have force of industry, or force of law, behind it.
As much as I hate bought legislation, why didn't the Tech Industry buy off their own Congressmen to compete with this foolishness?
I know MS only started contributing to campaigns in the last presidential election, and they've already patented the DRM OS, and IBM stands on moral and ethical ground of not getting involved- Compaq and HP are too busy fighting to merge to get involved-
By the time they realize what they've lost it will be too late to turn the tide. At least Intel tried.
Not too serious... (Score:5, Insightful)
THE BIG FREAKING POINT. (Score:5, Insightful)
Is that copyright is NOT there to guarantee that people make lots of money, copyright is there to guarantee that society has literature, art, and music, by making sure artists can earn money through creation.
Huge corporations stopping fair use and extending copyright limits for the length of several human lifetimes is unAmerican.
I'm all for REAL copyright that still provides for fair use. I don't trust these goddamn people to do it for me. If it was a legitimate matter of wanting to protect themselves, i'd be more sympathetic, but its not secret that they want to find more ways to fuck you out of your money.
How are we "in trouble"? (Score:2, Insightful)
we're in trouble either way.
I don't agree with this conclusion. Providing digital copyright protection in future devices that provide access to media makes sense.
It is specifically what is proposed in the SSSCA which does *not* make sense. It is "retroactive" (for lack of a better term) and it has stiff penalties for offenders.
Implying that we are in some sort of trouble is absurd, and does nothing but further the notion that everyone on the internet is knowingly stealing copyrighted material left and right, enjoy breaking the law, and do it frequently enough to worry about enforcement.
Re:Not too serious... (Score:3, Insightful)
My feelings (Score:3, Insightful)
But, see, the thing is, this mandates DRM - to Hollywood's specs - not only in Windows, but in Linux, *BSD, MacOS, PalmOS, and every single device I own. That's unreasonable.
If I'm told that I'm not allowed to use FreeBSD anymore because the TCP stack doesn't check incoming packets for copyrighted material, and because FFS lets me store mp3's, then I'm going to be really pissed. If I'm told that there are going to be some components that can no longer be 'open source' - or, more importantly, Free Software - I'm going to be really pissed. If every hard drive that I see in the store has built in DRM, I'm going to be even more pissed.
Well, guess what? That's what this bill says. My rights are getting pissed on by this bill, and it pisses me off. I'm calling my reps and telling them that if they vote for it I will not vote for them.
Hardware Copy Protection (Score:1, Insightful)
Second, if it's an expansion card added to the computer by Compaq/HP/Dell/IBM/etc, what's to stop people from pulling it out? How about people who build their own computers (like everyone here)?
I don't think anyone should fret just yet, this is an impossible task. Plus, this bill isn't making it illegal to do the copying (it already is!), but is making the computer industry come up with a way of preventing copying. Will this affect the people who are bypassing it?
Re:Foregone conclusions (Score:4, Insightful)
Because the Tech Industry doesn't care about us. They care about making money. They will still be able to make money post-"enforced copy-protection".
If there's anything that Cisco's "Wall Of Oppression" firewall proved is that these tech companies that people on Slashdot adore and identify with as being the corporate embodiment of themselves are anything but. They are simply corporations in pursuit of money. People have ideals and ethics. Companies do not.
We all thought the tech companies were different from the other megacorps because they were started by people like us. They aren't different.
Bipartisanship could actually save us. (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, our government is largely corrupt, and IMHO, neither Hollings or Bush should be in office. But if Hollings does introduce this bill, and it passes through Congress, there would be a good chance of Bush vetoing it. Of course, since the Senate is so closely split with Republicans & Democrats, I'm hoping that with the right pressure placed by us geeks, this bill won't pass in the first place.
The irony of the situation (Score:4, Insightful)
"The truth is, if you cannot protect what you own, you don't own anything."
Unfortunately for the consumer:
"The truth is, if you cannot do whatever to things you own, you don't own anything."
Do Something! (Score:2, Insightful)
Call your representatives, especially if you have one on the Senate committee considering this. I called John Edwards office on Wednesday. It took all of 30 seconds. Did my call make a difference? Probably not. Would 500-1000 calls that day have made a difference? Possibly.
We, the technologically inclined, need to get off of our comfortable, Quake-playing asses and realize that there's a world out there. We're so caught up in ourselves that if an issue doesn't affect us personally this very day, we ignore it, aside from some grumbling on slashdot. Well, Congress doesn't read slashdot, so we need to get our message out.
Rise up, geeks. Organize. I find it hard to believe that a group that can build Mozilla can't get itself together enough to organize efforts against laws that affect our very livelihood. The only way we can even have a chance of stopping this is if we all work together.
Can we?
No you won't. Europe will obey. (Re:overseas....) (Score:2, Insightful)
They will find a way.. if it's worth it (Score:3, Insightful)
Pirates only pirate things when it's perceived as less convenient to purchase them. Today, it is more convenient for those so inclined to pirate something that costs $25 a copy and face the possible consequences than it is to pay the $25.
Now, if the same IP didn't come with 4 pounds of land-fillable packaging and permanently scribed onto its own read-only media and was made available online for say $5... then it might be more convenient for those same individuals to just chuck out the $5 and download the thing. Seems like a pretty simple solution to me.
Of course, you could fiddle with the other side and make the penalty for violating SSSCA (or any other copy prevention law) be instant death.. and what with the micro chip implants and all, that would be easily enforcable.
and for what it's worth: My "car" analogy on the SSSCA... Imagine what it would be like if it were illegal to build a car that could go more than 65 MPH? Good bye F1, Indy, CART, etc.
Vortran out
What about information that WANTS to be free? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't understand how it would be possible to differentiate between content that was once DRM-controlled but no longer is, and content that was never DRM-controlled.
What if I write a story and distribute it? Of course it isn't going to have an appropriate digital signature on it. What am I supposed to do, go to some kind of appropriate authority and somehow publish it through them? What if I can't afford whatever fees they charge? Heck, paying for the right to publish? Talk about a prior restraint on free speech.
But then again, I forget, I'm not supposed to want to publish anything, and even if I do I'm not supposed to be able to do it. After all, the Internet is supposed to be just like television, right?
Disturbing (Score:2, Insightful)
be building machines without copy protection outside
of the US ? I _bet_ they won't.
So we Europeans will be affected and can't do _anything_
about it. THAT'S my problem.
2. What will this new hardware do to Linux and will
Open Source still be possible and legal after this
law passed ?
The US government is taking away consumer rights
one after the other. After following these things
here on Slashdot I'm _really_ happy to live in Europe,
but that won't help me in the long-term since
nowadays US laws can be enforced everywhere it seems.
Getting Ridiculous (Score:2, Insightful)
How many people are still waiting the outcome of Congress and the President before they get employment ( or welfare - depending on your parties choice ) help?
How many people are still waiting for homeland defense and security that applies to us physically such as the planes I fly and the bridge I drive over to get to work?
This is ridiculous. If the only thing Congress can do with their time is write laws and bills that make their *supporters* and Lobbyist happy then this country is in a sad state indeed. We vote these people into office. WE should be the ones they answer to. Not AOL Time/Warnder. Not RIAA/MPAA. Not Company A or B. This is pathetic and I'm getting sick of the waste of taxpayers dollar paying these people to make laws that are designed to 'burn us, make companys happy'.
Let's just all get together and give all of our money to our local congressman. Then we'll take our childrens money and give it to a company of our congressman's choice AND THEN jump off a bridge.
Re:There's alway a way to break copy protection (Score:5, Insightful)
When electronics are outlawed, only outlaws will develop electronics.
I think we're on the verge of self-destructing our $1T technology industry goodbye for the $50M Hollyweird industry.
Right now, there's some geeky Chinese kid tinkering with a soldering iron. When he's in high school, he'll be playing around with FPGAs. When he goes to university, he'll meet another kid from India (he spent his childhood salvaging parts from our junked computers), and together, they'll develop a way to mass-produce quantum transistors.
Your kids, by government edict, won't have such advantages. Valenti, Eisner and Hollings would rather have the nation's kids watch The Lion King so Disney can make a 5-year profit projection.
25 years from now, your kids will be working in sweatshops assembling quantum computers. Because that Chinese kid and that Indian kid will form the next AT&T Labs. Your kid could have done the same in America, but his government destroyed his economic future for the sake of a fucking cartoon mouse.
On the other hand, the education budget can be cut - if SSSCA passes, all you'll need to prepare your kids for the future is a mop and a spatula. There'll still be some money for the gifted and talented ones -- they'll get squeegees.
Re:THE BIG FREAKING POINT. (Score:4, Insightful)
Before anyone misinterprets this, the SSSCA is about indefinite copyright. Or rather, about de facto indefinite copy-control. Because even when the copyright on the content runs out (if it ever does), it will still be illegal to obtain the tools to extract, use and distribute the content. It's like putting copyrighted material in a locked safe with a tiny window in it, and saying "In 70 years, you can open the safe and put the contents into the public domain. Only we're not telling you the combination, and if you so much as enquire about safe-cracking kits, we'll assume in a very real and legally binding fashion that you actually want to crack open other safes, and have you prosecuted." Append a maniacal laugh, if you like.
Re:Not too serious... (Score:2, Insightful)
Many, many years ago, Congress passed a law prohibiting the sale of scanners that could receive cell phone frequencies. Initially, most manufacturers merely put jumper settings to turn that frequency range on or off. Congress modified the law prohibiting the easy bypassing of the locked-out frequencies, so it is now near impossible to mod scanners to receive cell phone frequencies (at least the old analog freq's).
In a similar vein, Congress could require computer manufacturers to make it impossible to circumvent built-in copy protection or else.
*ahem* Of course, with $20 worth of parts from Radio Shack you can build a converter to convert cell phone frequencies to a range that your scanner can receive.
Re:wont work (Score:2, Insightful)
The parallel to the SSSCA would be that people will be required to be encased in impenetrable steel garments, so that they cannot be killed by any means.
The difference between a law that forbids something, and a law that requires something is passive vs. active. You know you're not supposed to speed, but you don't see car manufacturers having limiters that refuse to go over 65mph, do you?
Parallel to the SSSCA: Everything is chained, tied, and locked down. You literally cannot steal, since you can't remove the item. I wonder how they'll consider backing up proprietary data, such as federal pharmeceutical filings, which are required by law to have multiple copies in multiple locations.Also, when I go out and burn a fresh copy of Linux onto a CDR, I am paying a royalty to the MPAA and RIAA, on the purchase of that blank recording media, even though it will never contain music or movies. I back up my mail spool to CDR, I've just kicked some more cash over to the RIAA, who uses that money to fund and further restrict what I can do with my own data.
This is out of control.
Re: Hey, here's the police ... (Score:2, Insightful)
"Hey, here's the police and Holywood Studios Special Forces Unit!
Either let us voluntarily search for non-compliant equipment, confiscate it if found or you'll be charged for being a pirate and will be terminated with your whole residence!"
IMO this law is not intended to fight pirates. It's goal is somewhere else (mentioned in a lot of other posts) and one of it's sideefects will be (sooner or later) police state where all "ordinary citizens" are at best suspects or (more likely) criminals right from their birdth.
The differences (Score:2, Insightful)
Hollings is looking for a way to prevent distribution of all digital media not sanctioned by the entertainment industry
The electronics industry is saying "we can make a secure method to distribute protected content but we can't protect files which don't incorporate this protection"
That's about as different as you can get.
A little bit of perspective... (Score:4, Insightful)
psxndc
Re:Compromise or be ignored - it's the only option (Score:3, Insightful)
That much seems certain.
Besides, why shouldn't effective DRM exist?
The main reason is because it is impossible.
But ignoring that for the moment, DRM should not exist because I should not have to ask anyone for "permission" to do whatever I want with the property I have bought in the privacy of my own living room. Especially not Disney. That's the bottom line.
Monsanto, may I eat?
Coca Cola, may I drink?
American Standard, may I piss and shit?
Disney, may I forget, a little, my miserable existence for 90 minutes?
I don't want to live in that world.
Re:Personal Copyrights and personal freedoms. (Score:2, Insightful)
You want to write software? Fine. Be sure to register with Software Industry Association of America and get your idea approved. Then after 4-6 weeks you'll be sent an "Individual Coder's Package." This will allow you to write your software with all the copy protection and watermarks built in (not editable by you, of course.) and run your software on your DRM compliant machine, only. This will not allow you to distribute your software; distribution will be decided by the SIAA after a lengthy review process. After 4-6 months, the SIAA decides that your software performs a similar function as a program by AOL/TimeWarner/Microsoft. A form letter arrives letting you know that you are in suspected violation of the DMCA. Your rights to create are suspended, pending an investigation. (4-6 years.)
If you are a writer, replace software with story.
If you are a musician, replace software with song.
If you are an artist, replace software with art.
If you are a filmaker, replace software with film.
If you are frightened, disgusted, and alarmed, you should be.
This will be the future if people do not educate others, and sit idly while Industry decides how best to control what you see, hear, use, and buy.
Have a great day.
Re:Bought and Paid For (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, they aren't my congresscritters. I'm not a US citizen and don't live in the US either.
Unfortunately (and more and more unfortunate it is as time goes on) the US technology industry has a large effect on the technology industry worldwide and this sort of stupidity in the States will have at least some spill-over effect in other countries. Don't think for a second that the MPAA and so on won't be pushing everyone's local politicians in name-your-country to do the same thing because "it's good for the US, so it's good for you too."
And there doesn't seem to be any obvious way for a non-US citizen to get a voice in this until long after the fact and until it starts to "bite" at home.
Truly tragic.
The only way to send a message to politicians (Score:3, Insightful)
Hollings isn't up until 2004, though, and I imagine he'll retire then.
Endgame ? (Score:1, Insightful)
Find out [slashdot.org]
So if it's illegal to decrypt stuff you already own, and it's illegal for any technology firm to not put rights management systems in the hardware and software, and there exists a patent on a 'digital rights management operating system' then what do you think's going to happen ?
In the USA, it will be illegal *NOT* to buy Microsoft Windows....... ?
crazy, just crazy..
To quote Heinlein again: "There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back."
I just want to write software (Score:5, Insightful)
I just want to write free software and give it to the world. I want the thrill of producing something with my peers that is as good or better as what the commercial world offers.
We're not interested in breaking copyrights; I don't even listen to any music from the last 30 years, and the only movies I watch are Star Wars. (Well, almost.)
The net effect of this is to reserve the privilege of publishing software to the elite few that can be certified as providing DRM. The Internet brought publishing to the masses -- now the big guys want to shut that off with trademark domain name rackets, etc. The free software revolution brought the art of producing software, the high art of hackery, to the masses. Now that's going to be shut off, too.
Fundamentally there's no difference between a gigantic big-city newspaper and a tiny neighborhood newsletter. Both should be accorded the same rights and protections. Well, fundamentally there's no difference between Microsoft and me, except Microsoft is big enough to be able to survive this DRM stuff. If it goes through, I won't be able to write software any more. Children won't be able to legally learn to program in the 4th grade like I did. Software will only come from crufty companies, and you can forget about free software (as in speech or as in beer, either one). There will be NO innovation anymore, and society will get what it justly deserves for passing such laws. I guess at that point only a revolution will bring back liberty.
Richard Stallman once wrote an essay [gnu.org] dipicting a future of software controls and unreasonable DRM. In the story, debuggers had been declared illegal because their primary purpose was to subvert copyright protections. I laughed the first time I read it, thinking that was ludicrous.
Re:Not too serious... (Score:3, Insightful)
When you get a speeding ticket, how is it a non-issue?
Bad laws are not just a nuisance; they are a serious threat. It's even worse when a bad law is not usually enforced, because then you have to break it if you want to be competitive and "keep up with the Joneses" -- but then if The Man ever decides you're a trouble-maker or otherwise undesirable, they can just selectively enforce it against you.
How the SSSCA will kill public domain (Score:5, Insightful)
Even assuming that copyright isn't extended indefinitely, which is a pretty big assumption, the SSSCA will effectively kill the public domain, and here's why.
Even when content comes out of copyright, how are you going to get access to it to use, modify and distribute it? Work through it with me. What you will have is (e.g.) a SSSCA-compliant DVD-2 disk containing an AV stream with a watermark that says "I belong to Disney" weaved in.
But it's out of copyright (let's ignore trademarks, although god knows that's a huge assumption), so now you can quite legally give a copy to your friends, or make your own edit of it, right?
Er, how?
You need to strip the watermark, or it will keep screaming that it belongs to Disney, and I very, very much doubt if any watermarks will have dates on them. No problem, you've got a quantum computer that can crack the pathetic 70 (90, 110, 130 or whatever it is by then) year old protection and remove it, right?
Not legally, you don't. You're allowed to do it, but you're not allowed the tools to do it. This is already the case under the DMCA. But the SSSCA just makes it worse because now you don't have (legal) access to any devices that will play any copied or modified versions unless you strip the watermark. Now you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't.
(Apologies for the re-use of the analogy, but it's a good one). The content is in a safe with a tiny window that means only you can view it. The clock has run out, and you're now legally allowed to open the safe and get access to the content. Only you don't know the combination. And you're not allowed to buy safe cracking tools, because the assumption is that you'll use them to crack open safes holding still copyrighted material.
One way or another, you have to break the law to create a copy or a modified version or to use such a copy, even though the act of making the copy is entirely legal. It's as simple as that.
Now consider that this also applies to fair use before the copyright expires. Bye bye using clips or images for parody, comment or review. Oh, you can copy the clip, it's just that owning anything that enables you to do so, or to view the copied clip, is illegal.
I do believe that the DMCA and the SSSCA are primarily about stopping piracy. There's no sinister long term motive to stop all fair use dead, or to extend copyright (or copy-prevention) indefinitely. No, those are just nice side effects that polarise society into two groups: licensed content creators, and consumers. Nothing in the middle. No independent multimedia artists or satirists, no amateur editors, no Project Guttenberg, no public domain libraries... no public domain. Just corporate producers, good little consumers... and criminals.
That's not a world I relish living in.
Dirty nasty filthy bits (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm no techno guru, so I can't say I understand all the issues involved in building 'secure' systems, but I dunno how they can stop the "laws of physics" (as some posters have put it), and prevent bits from being copied.
They can only make it harder to copy stuff, but then it only takes one person to crack it. They can make it illegal to distribute copies, but then we have huge illegal distribution networks in place. They can put people in jail for posession, but then they can't examine the contents of a CD found on your person without taking it to the lab. They can make a device report every single file you open to some central database or whatnot, but who the hell is going to track billions of needles in terabytes of haystacks?
Just what do they expect to be able to do? Frighten people? Make 'em think, "gee, this is illegal... I'd better not do it?" -- but music and films appeal to young people, the ones most likely to have less need of "respectability".
Is Dirty Data is going to become a new rhetoric, a sort of new morality, making people believe that data can be "filthy" and "rotten". Listen to a Bach copy and you'll be corrupted by those dirty nasty un-authenticated bits??
Is that all they hope to achieve? Get the tech industry to admit that it might be sort of maybe possible, (thus creating pretense that the law is enforceable), and then use the existence of the law to create a cultural notion that copying is bad and can damage your health and well being?
Silly, but I do wonder. Or perhaps they already realise that the game is up. Digital technology is to data what mass cheap produced energy available through a socket in your home is to the local cart and coal merchant. They know the game is up. Their distribution model is dead. And they're just buying themselves some time.
So long as they can maintain the illusion that they still have something to own and distribute (see, we prevent copies with DRM, and we sell online to new markets), then their credibility as a business will continue... just a little while longer. Maybe until they figure out what to really do, maybe just to milk the market until they retire.
Either way, when an empty shell of an industry only has it's image of power and worth left, then "The show must go on...."
The biggest problem IN THE UNIVERSE! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is obviously a bigger problem than cancer, AIDS, world hunger, or the state-sanctioned violence going on all over the world.
They say the SSSCA will "boost hardware sales." That is because you will have to dump the system you just bought and get a new one if you want to take advanage of all of the 'great new online content.'
I think the only solution is to boycott this crap when it comes out. Refuse to buy the new DRM 64GHz system. Waive your right to watch Madonna or Jurassic Park 47 online. Point out to these corrupt politicians that you are not stupid enough to let them obsolete a system that you bought last month.
It is annoying that we (taxpayers) and the hardware industry end up spending the time and money involved in implementing these systems for the entertainment industry, while they sit back and do nothing basking in the glow of the inconvenience that they have caused everyone.
On top of that, after we go through the expenditure and wast of accomodating these paranoid jerks, we inevitably find that it has basically zero effect (except the waste of time and money). How much time and effort was spent on the copy flags implemented on every CD you buy? Has it ever prevented you from doing anything you wanted to the contents of a CD? Have you ever seen a pirated copy of a CD on DAT tape? I haven't.
But still, this is the most pressing issue for human society to solve today.
Re:But Enron and Global Crossing were _un_regulate (Score:5, Insightful)
How about this?
The first rule covers the establishment of monopolies through legal means. The second rule covers monopolies that develop without legal support (i.e., natural monopolies).
Should I send this to my congressmen? (Score:5, Insightful)
The U.S. economy is in the midst of an amazing ascent from recession, having endured more than any of us might have imagined that it could survive.
The digital information infrastructure is in no small part responsible for our recovery. The ability of businesses to easily and quickly exchange large amounts of information is key to our ever-increasing productivity.
This infrastructure is made possible by a number of software applications that are made available for free, and these applications are maintained by organizations that derive their profits by charging for support.
Let us take, for example, the "sendmail" application supported by:
http://www.sendmail.org
It is both unfair and unreasonable to require this company, who gives their product away for free, and plays no direct role in piracy on the Internet, to shoulder the overhead of implementing digital rights management.
Furthermore, "sendmail" is such a widespread product that E-Mail on the Internet would effectively end if all copies of "sendmail" were
simultaneously disabled.
The SSSCA will take broad sectors of the IT market into violation of the law with the stroke of a pen. These sectors will include the entire free software movement, including one of my favorite companies, Red Hat Software (one of the most successful IPOs of 1999).
The damage to our information information infrastructure will be incalcuable should this legislation be enacted.
This legislation is a result of the lobbying efforts of the MPAA and the RIIA, who rightly desire some control over the perfusion of their digital content. Such content controls could easily be made voluntary by including a small message in an MP3 asking the user to purchase a legitimate copy of the work if a license key was not found in a local encyption key cache.
Instead, these media organizations wish to trample our constitutional protections on freedom of speech and fair use, and take the economy along with it.
Let there be no mistake; this legislation is a disaster. I urge you to vote against it.
Profit is the ONLY motive to create?! (Score:3, Insightful)
Explain Linux [linux.org] then.
Re:Not too serious... (Score:2, Insightful)
Not to mention the creation and sustainance of new criminal organizations, and increases in police (-state) powers to combat them. Think Al Capone during prohibition. The current war on the constitution.
If stupid laws make everyone a criminal, then the authorities can detain, arrest, and convict whoever they find unpleasant.
Re:No, it won't be fun at all (Score:3, Insightful)
Interesting quote. Here's another one that's, I think, closely related:
Another that's been making the rounds lately:
All of these seem particularly apropos to what's been going on in the U.S. Congress lately. Crimeny if these hearings (along with the Enron fiasco) aren't reason enough to institute strict campaign contribution regulations then I don't know what is. One wonder what might have been had buggy whip manufacturers had deeper pockets...
Re:Good. (Score:3, Insightful)
But ordinary people won't pay for the ``professional'' grade of equipment that will be mandatory if you're going to create content. And it surely won't be long before you'll need to have a license to distribute content. So you better just shut up and leave content creation to Disney and other people who know what's best for you.
I hear they're working making `possession of free will' a felony as well.
Why do we have to fear this? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:The only way to send a message to politicians (Score:2, Insightful)
Does anyone think this bill can pass and not create a major recesssion? We need to tell the most viable opponents of any incumbents who vote for this bill how this bill screwed the economy and the Net and how it happened and why it must be repealed. I see some wonderful attack ads in the future of anyone stupid enough to vote for this.
Incumbents will automatically be in trouble anyway. We should do what we can to make that trouble far worse.
This bill should be called "The Incumbent-free Congress" act. While Hollings will definitely be of retirement age and will have a nice pension we're paying for waiting for him, there are a lot of first-term Congress who would like to stay in for a while. The consequences of this bill becoming law should nicely derail the chances of anyone stupid enough to vote for it of staying in office.
Basically, Hollings and Hollywood are giving Congress a "poison pill" and hoping they'll swallow it.
This is one of the few pieces of legislation I've ever seen that will even do harm to even its supporters. Unless anyone thinks Hollywood in any form we know it in can now do without computers, implementing their bill will hose their computers as well as our own.
Of course, by the time people start asking Valenti just why every single digital FX project for Hollywood is behind schedule and movies are generally running millions over the usual overbudgeting, he'll have retired, his damage done. However, this may not be an issue, a lot fewer people will be able to afford movies, either at theaters or via cable.
The bottom line is that this bill is a threat to our jobs.
If it passes, this will give more of us, especially those that this bill as law will render unemployable a lot more free time to volunteer to work against the people who vote for it.
Re:Foregone conclusions (Score:3, Insightful)
People won't run out to buy the newest, fastest, $$-est CD or DVD-burning drive (or the newest, fastest, $$-est "rip, mix and burn"ing, IPod-loading G4 for you wholistic Mac folks)if it is no longer possible to use them for that purpose. People won't surf the net so much anymore, because everytime their mouse brushes over some link that isn't encrypted with the Hollywood seal of approval, their computers will be hardwired to lock up and submit their email address to the FBI. In fact, people won't spend nearly as much time staring at their monitors because of all they won't be able to do on them, so they won't go out and buy flat panels for their vert-sync-shot eyes.
And ultimately, the more control Hollywood is able to assert, the computer itself ceases to be perceived as the omnifunctional entertainment platform the "tech industry" has gotten rich selling to the general public. That is exactly what Hollywood does want and the "tech industry" does not want: the public shutting off their computers and flocking back to their insipid radio and TV fare in droves. Make no mistake: the interests of the tech industry are diametrically opposed to Big Movie and Big Music. The internet is the worst thing that ever happened to these industries, which (prior to the internet) made endless money selling you 100 flavors and colors of crap because they control all the distribution channels and you won't know any better. Big Movie and Big Music don't really want to offer their content "securely" on the internet - that's just a temporary measure until they figure out how to kill the computer/internet phenomenon entirely. It's their biggest competitor.
So regardless of whether the entire "tech industry" is motivated by corporate greed (OK, it probably is), I have reason to think that its greed will motivate it to undermine DRM. Yes, they're asking for "self policed" DRM, but that is just a PR thing, like Microsoft asking for a "self policed" penalty (which would be no penalty at all).
Re:Should I send this to my congressmen? (Score:3, Insightful)
Dear Senator Hutchinson,
I will keep this short as I know you are a busy woman and have limited time. I need to know where you stand on Sen. Fritz Hollings' proposed Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA).
This is a very important legislation to me, and I feel that voting for it could very well send our economy into another recession as we sell out the trillion dollar tech industry (which everyone seems to think is the future of our economy) to the billion dollar entertainment industry.
I'll put it in a sound bite for you: "Today I was watching CNN and everyone was concerned that an energy company named Enron had been responsible for legislation pertaining to the energy industry. What you have here is the copyright industry writing the very laws that pertain to the copyright industry. It was bad in the case of Enron, and it's no better here."
I will tell you that if this law does pass, and you do vote for it, I will make it a point to vote against you in the next election -- regardless of who is running against you, and I will make every attempt to convince friends and family to do the same.
Sincerely,
K. Jack McCauley
[contact info removed]